Seahorse tails provide inspiration for robotics, body armor

Researchers evaluating natural ways of making something both strong and flexible often take inspiration from nature. In this case, they are looking at seahorse tails due to their strong, flexible properties.

Published this week in the journal Acta Biomaterialia, researchers Porter, Novitskaya, and others probe the interesting properties of seahorse tails to see if their flexible, bony structure could somehow yield ideas into new robotic devices for gripping, body armor, or fracture-resistant structures.

What they found was the tails of seahorses are comprised of interesting bony plates arranged in a ring-like shape that allows segments to slide past one another when twisted or bent yielding a strong, flexible structure that is ideal for both protection and for strongly gripping things while remaining flexible and compressible.